Dead Souls characters

Also known as Pavel Ivanovich

Appears from the start

A polished traveler of middling rank who arrives in a provincial town with two servants and no obvious business. He carefully flatters officials and landowners, gathering information about their estates while presenting himself as respectable, agreeable, and unremarkable.

Appears from the start

Chichikov's coachman, responsible for the britzka and its three horses. He is sociable, frequently careless, and prone to drinking, and his uncertain sense of direction repeatedly shapes his master's travels between estates.

Appears from the start

Chichikov's taciturn valet. Petrushka wears a distinctive old coat, reads without much concern for meaning, and brings his own habits and atmosphere into the rooms he prepares for his master.

First appears in chapter 2

A sentimental landowner whose refined phrases and plans for improvements never become practical action. He welcomes Chichikov with elaborate warmth and is the first person from whom Chichikov asks to acquire serfs who remain on the tax register although they have died.

Also known as Nastasya Petrovna

First appears in chapter 3

A widowed landowner who gives Chichikov shelter after he loses the road in a storm. Practical but deeply cautious about any unfamiliar bargain, she fears selling too cheaply and treats deceased serfs as another commodity whose market price she may not understand.

First appears in chapter 4

A noisy, impulsive landowner and compulsive gambler whom Chichikov meets again at an inn. Nozdryov lies, boasts, quarrels, and tries to turn every transaction into a game or an exchange on his own terms, making him dangerous to a scheme that depends on discretion.

First appears in chapter 5

A heavy, blunt landowner whose solid house and possessions resemble his own practical temperament. Unlike Chichikov's more dreamy or erratic hosts, he immediately treats the proposed transfer of dead serfs as hard bargaining and praises each deceased worker as valuable property.

First appears in chapter 6

A once-prosperous landowner whose miserliness has reduced his estate and household to decay. Suspicious of everyone and unable to use what he hoards, he nevertheless has many dead or runaway serfs still burdening his tax register, making him especially receptive to Chichikov's offer.

First appears in chapter 8

The provincial governor's young daughter, recently returned from her education and conspicuous to Chichikov at a ball. His attention to her disrupts the careful social performance by which he has won the town's approval.

First appears in chapter 10

An army veteran whose history is told by the postmaster as a proposed explanation for Chichikov's identity. After losing an arm and a leg in war, Kopeikin seeks government help in the capital but encounters delay and indifference.

Also known as Andrei Ivanovich

First appears in chapter 12

An educated landowner encountered when Chichikov resumes his travels. Tentetnikov has withdrawn to his estate after disappointed ambitions and fallen into inactivity, though his attachment to General Betrishchev's daughter still connects him to neighboring society.

First appears in chapter 12

A proud, imposing landowner and retired general who has quarreled with Tentetnikov. Chichikov seeks his favor and tries to use the estrangement, and the general's affection for his daughter, as openings for new social and financial maneuvers.

First appears in chapter 13

General Betrishchev's spirited daughter and the woman Tentetnikov loves. Her presence gives emotional weight to the estrangement between the two men and to Chichikov's attempt to present himself as their useful intermediary.

First appears in chapter 14

A wealthy, energetic estate manager whose productive farming and disciplined household contrast with the neglect found elsewhere. Chichikov is impressed by the profits that practical work can produce, though he remains more attracted to shortcuts than to sustained reform.

First appears in chapter 14

A bankrupt gentleman whose neglected estate is offered for sale. Generous impulses and disorderly spending have left him unable to support his large household, and his distress creates another opportunity for Chichikov to acquire property through borrowed money and advantageous paperwork.

First appears in chapter 15

A rich, influential man with a reputation for moral seriousness and direct speech. When Chichikov's renewed dealings bring him into grave legal danger, Murazov urges him to abandon fraud and redirect his abilities toward an honest life.